Innovate your sip of summer
Pushpesh Pant
WHEN summer comes, can cold drinks be far behind? But the problem of defining a cold drink is getting increasingly difficult. Those who are teetotallers are offered what are called ‘soft drinks’. The adjective ‘hard’ is reserved, with good reason, for alcoholic beverages. Most of the soft drinks, be it juices, mocktails, squashes or sherbets, are served cold. This list is not exhaustive. You could add to it bottled cola drinks, orange and lemon-flavoured sodas, thandai, aam panna and so on until you have to stop to catch your breath. But we digress.
What must one gulp to treat the parched throat and rehydrate the body that is stricken by heatwave? The oldest known traditional Indian drink is shikanji. The word derives from the small wooden trap-like contraption in which lemon is squeezed to extract its juices. The old-fashioned way of making this desi lemonade is to put lemon juice and sugar in a glass jar, tightly close the lid and keep it in the sun to let the indirect heat ‘cook’ the syrup. Legend has it that Raja Nala discovered this method and it was termed ‘nalpak’ to commemorate him. Just before serving, a pinch of salt/black rock salt was added with maybe a pudina leaf as a garnish. More than refreshing, it is a real revitaliser. When the doctors prescribe oral rehydration therapy, they play around with these very elements.
Alas, with the passage of time, the wisdom of the ancient times has been forgotten. Short cuts are taken and what is passed off as shikanji is nimbu paani that cannot be upgraded however hard one tries — by adding soda, masala, etc. Interestingly, shikanji is going under a fusion transformation in the recent months. A few weeks back, we were treated to a bael-imli shikanji garnished with a twist of orange peel that was made fizzy with soda or sparkling water. We must admit that the concoction was a refreshingly different variant from the run-of-the-mill shikanji laced with more than a few drops of Roohafza.
We have often wondered why people have given up quenching their thirst with iced tea. Truth be told, iced tea, prefixed with Long Island, a tall cool drink, has more alcohol than tea. It is easy to make an iced tea to match your taste at home. A variety of teas is available in the market today and many come in teabags, the only thing to keep in mind is that for iced tea, like for cold coffee, the brew has to be twice the strength of the hot cup.
Dear readers, we firmly believe that you should surprise your guests with your own creations and improvisations on the cold drink theme. It is not difficult to blend small quantities of fruit juices (not synthetically flavoured or coloured) and add these to tea and shikanji. It is strange that people happily pay through their nose for mocktails in restaurants and bars that have nothing more than syrup, artificial colours, flavours and tiny bits of garnishes to justify their fancy names. Sommeliers mount a performance with a cocktail shaker and the atmosphere of a bar may transport to a different time and place, but what you are shelling out money for is entertainment.
But we assure you that if you acquire the minimal paraphernalia, you can very soon master all the tricks of the trade and do wonders with natural additives like coconut water and nira. Coffee is far less gregarious but this should not deter you from indulging in a cold brew, which is extremely satisfying and thirst quenching. We are deliberately not sharing a recipe with you this time as we would like you to let your creative juices flow, along with the lemon juice, floral infusions and homemade sherbets this summer.
